Year B

Mark 16:1-8

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Glorious News of Empty Tomb

The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Such is our joyous proclamation this Easter Day for Christ is Alive, and Christians all over the world join our song. But did you know that, in fact, no one actually saw the Resurrection. There were no ‘reality TV’ cameras on hand to confirm it and Mark’s simple telling of Jesus’ resurrection, provides no eyewitness accounts from those who have met the risen Lord. There’s just an empty tomb and an angel saying, “He’s gone from here.” They might have thought it all an April fool’s joke especially since Jesus had been so cruelly tortured and executed, no one would have thought God would have miraculously raised him to life. If anything, ‘Jesus on the cross,’ showed that he had been a false prophet, cursed and rebuked by God.

The Easter faith of the earliest Christians came not from putting together a ‘body of evidence’ to convince unbelievers of Jesus’ resurrection. It came from each person deciding for him or herself. Isn’t this the same for us today? Each Christian through the centuries has had to decide if they believe the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive. Not one of us here today has embraced Jesus, as Mary Magdalene did, or put our finger in his side, as Thomas did. All that is left to us are the stories and the testimony because Easter is not an historical event but a great mystery of faith.

The women who made there way to the tomb that early Sunday morning had to decide when they found the tomb empty and the young man dressed in a white robe sitting there. Quite frightening I’m sure! Though he told them to Go tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus was alive, they fled from the tomb in terror and amazement. What the three women hear and see at that tomb leaves them speechless. Risen?

Perhaps the empty tomb is the hardest thing for us also to accept in a world that can seem so evil and needy. Yet, there is plenty of evidence that the people who knew Jesus well, the disciples, did met with Jesus after he had died. We find quite detailed accounts of these meetings in the Gospels, in the Book of Acts and in Paul’s letters. There is even some reference in literature outside of the Bible to the fact that the followers of Jesus saw and believed he had risen from the dead, and their integrity rings true in their witness to the risen Jesus and in their sacrificial service to others.

The evidence is there and those who met with Jesus after his resurrection had no doubt that they had met with him in some kind of earthly presence. The reality of their experience was a powerful inspiration, sufficient enough to send them out to the ends of the earth; preaching and teaching the good news that Jesus had overcome death and was alive. The message of Easter is that God left his heaven to enter fully into the life of a world through Jesus that was far from all right. The God of Easter did not shun this real world but came into the very thick of it, hugging unwanted children, forgiving prostitutes, dining with the scum of the earth, getting his hands dirty in acts of mercy, blessing and love so real and so deep that they could not be crushed by death itself.

The empty tomb is God’s great exclamation point that comes in the middle of the sentence assuring us that at the end of the day, truth will not be denied, beauty soiled, nor goodness overcome. For this reason, Christians through the centuries have celebrated the Resurrection with great joy and great hope. Easter gives us hope because it promises that God will do the same for those who believe what God has already done for Jesus.  The resurrection of Jesus is not the end, but the first of other resurrections to come…..for all who believe.

We must have confidence that a power is at work outside ourselves if we are to keep our hope amid the skepticism, unbelief, superstition and evil of this world. If Easter were the end of our struggle, its message could promise immunity from the evil of this world. But Easter is just the beginning of our struggle to undo the patterns of unbelief, evil, death and destruction because the glorious news is that death has been vanquished forever in the risen Christ so we have to go and tell this glorious news.

The last thing Mark tells us is that the women do indeed go, but we are then left wondering if they did actually go and tell for the text tells us they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid. Mark appears to be leaving the church with a picture of confusion and fleeing, abandoning the hope of Jesus’ earlier promises. But Mark can’t end his resurrection story with silent fear because the key to Mark’s purpose is his conviction that a disciple or believer of the crucified Messiah will experience him as the resurrected Messiah whenever he or she risks everything, steps out and follows the risen Lord to Galilee.

Mark is calling for a community of disciples that will deny themselves, pick up their cross and risk finishing the story. Will we go and tell? It’s obvious that the women did go and tell. That is the command of the angel: Go and tell! Resurrection belief demands witness and mission; thus we must discover for ourselves that the Lord has indeed risen, we must make the decision to believe or not believe the tomb is empty and if we find that Resurrection faith in our lives, then we must allow this belief to send us out into the world to witness and proclaim that Jesus is indeed alive.

The Lord is risen! He has risen indeed!